Quality Indicators to Assess the End-of-Life Care in the Intensive Care Unit-Juniper Publishers
Juniper Publishers - Journal of Anesthesia Abstract Objectives: Intensive Care Units (ICU) in Hong Kong incorporated palliative care in the daily practice. We would like to evaluate the quality of end-of-life care (EoLC) in the ICU. Design, setting and participants: Quality indicators consist of 4 domains and 12 indicators were devised. The four domains were early identification of dying patients; communication and information; end-of-life care to the patient and care after death. Next, we applied these indicators to assess the EoLC of patients who died in a 20-beds mixed ICU from 1st Jul to 30th Sep 2012. Main outcome measures: The 12 EoL quality indicators Results: Out of the 38 patient records, 33 were included for analysis. There were no objective criteria to identify dying patients. All the studied families received an EoL physician-family conference. Although high documentation rate (90.9%) of the treatment plan and resuscitation status; only 3.0% of ...